Ashes? Wot ashes? And why would you want to bring them home? (It’s Sunday, you’ve got to laugh!)

(Prospero’s own) Okay, I confess it. I went up to the Oba Bar & Bistro on the day the Ashes came home – or that’s what Auntie Beeb said before I left. Almost my first words to a crowd of very pleased Brit TV watchers there were something like, “Cricket has got to be the most ridiculous game ever invented.” It may not have been the right place and time, but it did express my feelings about a game that, yes, I was obliged to play at school (played ‘silly mid-on’ but that’s another, painful, story).>PLEASE BE AWARE THAT ITEMS SUCH AS THIS MAY BE SUBJECT TO SUBSCRIPTION IN THE FUTURE. Please click here for more information.

Everyone’s seen a tea towel looking something like the old one that illustrates this item. I first came across it in America years ago. It reads something like this:

you have 2 sides; a team that’s in and a team that’s out.. two men in the team that’s in go out and when one of the men who’s in is out; the next man goes in until he’s out. When they are all out; the side that’s out comes in and the side that’s been in goes out and tries to get those coming in, out. Sometimes you get min still in and not out.
When a man goes out to go in; the men who are out are trying to get him out; and when he is out he goes in and the next man in goes out and goes in. There are two men called umpires who stay out all the time and they decided when the men who are in are out. When both sides have been in and all the men have been out; and both sides have been out twice after all the men have been in, including those who are not out, that is the end of the game.